The second season of The Legend of Vox Machina has finally wrapped up, and the adventure is more epic than the last. If you are a fan of fantasy, you’ve already finished this series. For those who aren’t fans of fantasy, go stream it now! Do not be intimidated by its setting, theme, or even the fact that it is based on Dungeons and Dragons. This is a great story regardless of its themes. I am astounded at how a tabletop game became this epic story. I will be here for the whole adventure and recommend you do the same.
Dragons have invaded Iman, bringing death and destruction to its citizens. It is up to Vox Machina to collect the Vestiges and save Tal’Dorei from the Chroma Conclave. Does this band of misfits have what it takes to become the heroes Tal’Dorei needs?
What is left to say about this series? The animation is fantastic and has some of the best-choreographed action I have seen in animation. The voice acting is expectedly amazing. The cast gives their best performances yet, and I recommend you watch this series for the fantastic storytelling that comes from it.
For those who haven’t seen this show, it gets violent and crude, but I couldn’t have it any other way. The best part of this series is how user-friendly it is. You don’t have to know anything about fantasy, Dungeons & Dragons, or Critical Role. Prior knowledge may help you pick up an easter egg or joke, but it isn’t crucial to your enjoyment. I love that this series is so accessible because it brings such a misunderstood genre to a general audience without sacrificing what makes it so good in the first place. I need more people to nerd out with.
These two seasons of The Legend of Vox Machina have cemented this series as a staple in the fantasy genre. It has a terrific adventure with real stakes and character growth. I love that even though I know what is going to happen, I am still on the edge of my seat, fearful of the outcome. I love that Vox Machina starts as this selfish band of misfits without any real purpose or direction. They are even hesitant when they are first called to action because they weren’t hero’s then. I love watching them face their many trials and learn from them, slowly stepping into their roles as heroes. They are still flawed and will constantly encounter situations where that look bleak, making this fantastic storytelling.
If you haven’t started watching The Legend of Vox Machina, now is a great time to start. This is a fantastic story that you shouldn’t miss out on. You can stream both seasons now on Amazon if you have a Prime Membership.
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Mythic Quest Season 3 Review
With the third season of Mythic Quest now fully released, I feel disappointed with how it all unfolded. I am a fan of this series, but I found it nearly impossible to finish this season. Don’t get me wrong, I still recommend this series if you haven’t seen it, but this season has left a lot to be desired.
Mythic Quest is a comedy series that satirizes the gaming industry as it follows the work life at the world’s most popular MMORPG of the same name. The series focuses on a collection of wacky characters and their budding personalities as they try to make Mythic Quest a game worth playing. The series criticizes the gaming industry through its use of humor and its well-written narrative.
While I loved the first two seasons of Mythic Quest, this season falls flat. The narrative was drawn out, with each episode ending in disappointing. This season felt like a setup for something that hopefully won’t get canceled by Apple. It began a lot of story threads bringing forth minor characters featuring stories you probably won’t care for. The overall experience was fine, but waiting week to week made this series harder to follow. Nothing was hooking me to come back for the next episode or season while we are at it. It is a better experience to watch the episodes back to back, but it remains the show’s weakest season.
What keeps me from hating this season is that if you look at it as a whole and remove all the fluff, there is much-needed character growth that I was happy to see. There are important story beats that give the narrative its meaningful advancement, but you have to sit through some boring story-lines.
I will probably watch the fourth season because I need my closure, but I lack the excitement I once had. Do not be discouraged, Mythic Quest is still worth watching. It has a fantastic cast playing great characters, and the story is mostly good. If you have Apple TV, you should have already watched it. If you don’t, it is worth the free trial.
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Series Review: Tulsa King (2022)
Tulsa King is a cheesy gangster movie that isn’t worth the Paramount+ subscription. While the series certainly has its moments, it is a sloppy experience that only a few will enjoy. If you have nothing else to watch and happen to have Paramount+, go for it. Otherwise, it isn’t worth your time.
Tulsa King is the story of an old gangster trying to set up an empire in Tulsa. The story picks up after Ike is released from his 25 jail sentence. The family he works for sends him to Tulsa to set up a new operation. The series will focus on Ike’s rise to power as he struggles with his regrets. Will Ike become Tulsa’s undisputed king?
Stalone is hands down the best part of the series. He has the charm and charisma to carry the cheesy gangster aspects of this show but also has enough talent for some of the more serious moments. Unfortunately, this is a mediocre show with flat characters and no plot.
One of the problems I have with this series is how preachy it gets about its social issues. The series will grind to a halt to point out social issues like racial discrimination or government oversight at the detriment of the narrative’s flow. This recent push to create media that is overly politically correct is ruining storytelling. There is a time and place for these kinds of conversations, and none of them are within the runtime of a cheesy gangster series.
My biggest issue with the series is how hard they try to humanize Ike through his interaction and relationship with people. Some work out fine like when he is trying to reconcile with his daughter, but others seem forced and lazy, like with his romantic interest. The romantic interest in this series is poorly written to the point that no amount of charisma can save it. This character is flat, boring, and generic. The whole romantic subplot is forced, and this series would be better without it.
This series could have been better if it didn’t try so hard to be serious. At its core, Tulsa King is a cheesy gangster narrative. Had this series been true to its roots, it could have been been a great thing. I would have loved a cheesy and nonsensical mob series with Stalone at the head. I wouldn’t care how flat the characters are or how dumb the plot was if I got to see Stalone bust skulls for no reason.
This series was a missed opportunity to bring some dumb and fun entertainment to an otherwise abysmal catalog. It may not be the worst series Paramount has to offer, but it isn’t worth going out of your way to watch it either.
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Series Review: Hot Skull (2022)
Hot Skull is an interesting take on the zombie genre. While the series may not feature the traditional zombie, it does feature the traditional tropes. The series is in Turkish, but there is dubbing in multiple languages. I always recommend watching shows in their original language, but the English dubbing for this is pretty good.
Hot Skull takes place in the middle of a global pandemic. The world fears a contagious disease that transfers through audio. People affected will start rambling endlessly, slowly forgetting who they are. People will turn to ramblers if they are exposed to rambling, so people live their lives wearing noise-canceling headphones. The government has taken advantage of the chaos and uses the pandemic to control its citizens. In a world without a cure, hope falls to Murat, the only person immune to the disease. Now the race is on to find a cure before the government silences Murat forever.
I enjoyed Hot Skull, but it isn’t without its faults. The series looks great and has a decent story, but some poorly written speeches were hard to sit through. It wasn’t bad enough to give up on the series, but I did zone out a few times. You notice it a lot whenever it deals with the peaceful protest group, but you can always skip around.
What I liked about this series is how it criticizes authoritarian governments. Hot Skull does a good job of showing how the government took advantage of the situation. Travel becomes restricted, curfews are set in place, the public narrative is heavily edited, and the government is not afraid to use excessive violence on what they consider to be dissidence. Civil unrest brews in the shadows because people no longer have control of their lives. I just wish they did a better job with the rebels. The group seems a bit lazily written and only exists to move the plot forward at points.
I enjoyed Murat as a protagonist. Murat is the only person who is immune to the disease, but he spends his time in hiding. As he becomes exposed to the cold reality around him, he becomes more involved in the revolution. It is cool to see his transformation as he becomes more active in finding a cure. His transition to heroism may not be fluid, but it was well enough for what this is.
The only complaint I have about this series is that it slows down halfway through. As Murat gets more active about his role in the pandemic, the series gets bogged down with a lot of revolutionary ideology that I didn’t have much interest in. It might be a translation issue, but there are a lot of sappy speeches about freedom and martyrs I didn’t care for either. The pacing picks up eventually, but not until I was ready to give up on the series.
Overall, the series stands pretty well. There was a good amount of suspense and tension. It handled a lot of its themes and criticism well. It may not be the best story, but it will pass the time. While I don’t see myself rewatching this series or waiting for a second season, I’m glad I watched it. I’d say that if you like the zombie genre and want to see something different, give this series a try. It’s better than the recent resident evil movies. Otherwise, wait till you have nothing to watch.
It is available for streaming on Netflix.
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Series Review: The Peripheral (2022)
The entire season of The Peripheral is finally available for streaming, and it wasn’t worth the wait. I started watching this series as it came out but quickly gave up when I lost interest. Having this series be a weekly release was a mistake because there isn’t enough happening to get you excited for the next episode. If you are looking for a good sci-fi series to binge, look elsewhere.
Flynn Fisher is the best VR gamer in the world, but she is also poor. She and her family live paycheck to paycheck and use Flynn’s gaming skills to make extra money. One day, a mysterious benefactor offers to pay her to test a new VR headset. Flynn finds herself in a hyper-realistic simulation where she must complete dangerous tasks to earn her paycheck. But there is an evil cabal working against her benefactor. Flynn finds herself in the middle of a deadly conflict where she and her family must fight to survive. Can Flynn get to the bottom of this mystery before anyone she loves dies?
I am happy this series has a recap before every episode because I struggled to remember the plot. The plot isn’t confusing, but it is boring. There clearly wasn’t enough plot for a whole series because they drag out what little plot they have over the eight episodes. This series is terribly paced. This series needed to be thrilling, fast-paced, and suspenseful, but it isn’t.
The cast is decent but they are wasted on flat characters and dull narrative. Flynn is a Betty Sue who seems to care the least about being in this series. She is much too perfect and will easily beat every encounter she faces. Any suspense and action that could have saved this series from being an abysmal flop are poorly executed. The action scenes are lethargic, the build-up is slow, and the big reveal comes out of nowhere. This is a series that suffers from a severe identity crisis as it struggles to try to define itself. There are too many plotlines fighting for your attention, and none of them will earn it.
I haven’t read the book this series is based on, but I can assure you it is a very loose adaptation. If you are here because you are a fan of the book or the Westworld series, prepare to be disappointed. This series was a waste of time. You can stream it on Amazon, but I wouldn’t bother.
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Series Review: The Pentaverate (2022)
Someone somewhere saw Love Guru and The Master of Disguise and decided that the world needed more of that. As a result, we were cursed with the most painfully unfunny series, The Pentaverate. The Pentaverate is a series full of bad puns, worse accents, and no jokes. Even if you like to make fun of bad tv, this series is a huge waste of time. Avoid it with your life. You have been warned.
The Pentaverate is a comedy series about a Canadian journalist who is searching for his next big story. His search leads him into the ranks of a secret organization that has tasked itself to help solve humanity’s biggest issues like hunger, illness, and global warming. What he stumbles into is more than he bargained for. There seems to be an ominous presence killing off members of the organization. Will he be able to get to the bottom of it, or will this be the end of the Pentaverate as we know it?
I hope this is the end of The Pentaverate because this series should not exist. This series is a collection of bad sketches connected together by a surprisingly nuanced narrative. As bad as this comedy is, there is an attempt at a narrative that I haven’t seen in other bad comedies. It might not be a good story, but it is a story and not a random collection of sketches.
None of the sketches in this series are worth your time. They go on for too long, and each one grows increasingly unfunny over time. Most of the humor in this series hinges on people speaking in skilly bad accents. They sprinkle a lot of bad puns and meta jokes in a desperate attempt to elicit a single chuckle from its audience, but all it achieves is the pity I feel for the people who had to sit through the filming. If this series is the best of what the script had to offer, I can only imagine how terrible the stuff that got cut out is. I pray to the gods we never get an extended cut.
If you were hoping that this would be the great comeback for Myers you were waiting for, it is not. If you are a fan of any of his earlier works, watch those instead. This is the worst collection of his comedy packaged as a series, and I hate whoever thought it was a good idea to print it. You can stream it on Netflix, but please don’t.
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Series Review: The Patient
The final episode of The Patient just released and I can’t help but feel some disappointment. This series is too long for what it is, but it isn’t terrible.
Alan is a therapist who has been kidnapped and imprisoned by one of his patients, Sam. Sam is a serial killer who is desperate to cure himself of his wicked desires. He believes that Alan is the only person who can cure him. Through a series of sessions, Sam hopes to cure himself of his affliction. Will Alan be enough to help Sam, or will he be another of his victims?
First off, the acting is terrific. Steve Carell and Domhnall Gleeson are simply amazing. The chemistry between these two is the only reason I stayed with this show as long as I did. You won’t be disappointed by anyone’s performance in this series. That said, this series has an issue with its pacing. If you watch the series in a sitting or two, it is a bit more palatable as you can more effectively experience the nuances of narrative as they unfold. You get a fuller picture as you watch the growth of both characters under the circumstance, and it makes an okay story. It is still too long for its good, but it makes for a better experience.
Unfortunately, the series was released weekly, and as a result, the narrative felt fragmented. The episodes are short and often weren’t satisfying. There are a few episodes where not much happens, hurting audience retention. This series doesn’t have enough tangible excitement episode to episode that would convince a viewer to come back for more. Watching this series without such a big gap makes this less of an issue because you are getting a more complete narrative experience. Had they combined some episodes, made them longer, or even had it been a movie, it would have been a better experience.
The Patient sits in a weird space for me because while there are some impressive moments, it takes too long to make its point. I do like how they deal with mental illness and how they highlight the importance of mental health. I do love the characters and their motivations. What I don’t like is that it feels like they drag this series on too long for profit, and it hurts the narrative. The Patient isn’t a bad series, and if you need something to watch, it is defiantly an option, but be prepared to skip around a bit. I wouldn’t go out of my way to watch this, but you can stream the whole series on Hulu.
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Series Review: The Midnight Club
The Midnight Club is a huge waste of time. Even if you enjoy horror anthologies and mysteries, this is a very weak entry into either genre. I wouldn’t bother with this series even for the morbid curiosity.
The Midnight Club is a collection of poorly written and acted ghost stories that exist within a mystery. In a hospice designed for teens with terminal diseases, a club was formed to help cope with the ever-looming death around them. The teens gather every night to tell ghost stories and blow off steam. But there is something sinister is afoot. The teens see ghosts and hear voices that aren’t there. There is something about a cult, but I honestly stopped caring pretty early on.
The acting is bad, and somehow the writing is worse. Scenes that exist outside of the ghost stories fair a little better, but barely. The biggest issue I have with this series is with the ghost stories. The stories are generic, and often parodies of better horror stories or movies. This would be fine if the intention was to parody, but it isn’t. This is a serious attempt at horror with very little value. Each story comes with an overbearing and poorly read narration that kills any tension the story could have. Some of the stories recap events that have occurred in the series, making this a redundant and uninteresting mess.
I wouldn’t mind if this show was a horror anthology if there wasn’t so much narration. I wouldn’t mind the stories if they didn’t take away from the overarching mystery. This series feels like several different shows, and none of it is cohesive. I often forgot there was a mystery tying the series together. I can’t tell you how many times I almost gave up on this series because nothing of note ever happens. This series has ghosts, tragic backstories, cults, death, and none of it matters.
The pacing is terrible. There is a lot of filler in this series. Most of it comes from the ghost stories, but there is a fair amount of self-service. The ghost stories are often interrupted by snide remarks or criticism from the other characters, and it kills any suspense the stories have. There are minutes dedicated after the stories to remark on how great the story and storyteller are. The main character won’t go an episode without talking about how smart and talented she is. It is infuriating how pretentious these characters can be.
The series does have a few interesting moments. I liked how the kids dealt with their mortality and talked about their illnesses. There are some interesting conversations about the social struggles they face due to their illness, but there isn’t enough to make it worth your time. Other than their illnesses, the characters have no depth to them.
Don’t watch this show because it is bad. The characters are flat, the plot doesn’t matter, and the acting isn’t even good. But if you don’t believe me, check it out on Netflix.
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Series Review: Devil in Ohio (2022)
Image by Waldkunst from Pixabay
This series is average at best, but I don’t believe it’s earned a recommendation. If you are looking for something to throw on and not be invested in, there are still better options. If you are looking for a creepy satanic cult series, look elsewhere. This series has a deep focus on high school and family drama, and it eventually remembers its cult roots.
Devil in Ohio is about a family that takes in a mysterious girl who has escaped a cult. While she is trying to adjust to normal life, strange things begin to happen. Not everyone trusts Mae, but the matriarch will go out of her way to save her. Is Mae the sweet and innocent girl she seems to be, or is something sinister brewing?
This series wastes a lot of time on the drama that I didn’t care for. The acting is average at best, making the drama even harder to sit through. Mae is by far the only interesting character in this series, and she deserves better. I liked how she was constantly conflicted about acting on her own or acting as she was raised. Watching her begin to build her own identity was an interesting narrative, but one that wasn’t explored to its full potential. They of course ruin her development towards the end when they remembered they were making a horror series.
I didn’t care for the rest of the family. Most of them had no personality and would only appear for their mandatory appearance. There was really no reason for having a family this big. Most of the drama was fabricated only as a means to drag out the series, and none of it is meaningful. This series feels longer than it is.
In the end, I can’t really recommend this show because it isn’t good. With Halloween coming up, you shouldn’t add this to your marathon. You can stream it on Netflix, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to watch it.
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Series Review: Slow Horses (2022)
Slow Horses is a spy thriller that you can stream on Apple TV that is based on the book of the same name. While I cannot speak on how good of an adaptation it is, I had a lot of fun with this show. Slow Horses has everything you want from a spy thriller. It is a show full of deception, double-crosses, gun fights, and a race against the clock. If you like the genre, this is a solid entry
Slow Horses focuses on the disgraced agents of MI5 who are sent to Slow House. Most have come to terms with their punishment and wait out their sentence till they can retire. Some still hold on to the hope that they earn their redemption. Opportunity strikes when a young Asian British man is kidnapped by an extremist and racist group that plans to execute him publicly. The members of the slow house jump to the task as the race is on to find the young man alive. Will they save the day and earn their redemption, or will they remain a disgrace to the organization?
This was a fun and enjoyable spy thriller. The acting is great, the story is interesting, and the pacing is perfect. While it does have some of the familiar spy thriller tropes, it is a unique enough story to keep things interesting. This is a team of imperfect misfits who are trying to prove themselves. They will make mistakes, but they will learn from them. As the series progresses, they slowly regain the spark they lost when they were sent to Slow House. This makes for an excellent redemption story, but also one with sufficient tension.
Sometimes with spy thrillers, you get characters who cannot fail because they are too perfect. This makes the story boring because any adversity they face is easily overcome. It is nice to see a group of people fail and then scramble to overcome their failure as they race against the clock. It is what makes a good thriller, and I can only hope that future entries to the genre continue with this trend.
Anyways, Slow Horses is a different but same kind of spy story, and you should watch it on Apple TV if you have a subscription.